Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation

by Bob Zeigler

We need to broaden the definition of peace work. Complete peace work is more than stopping armed conflict. It is healing people of physical and psychological wounds, allowing people to have control over their lives and live in sustainable communities. It is healing the earth and restoring community.

Peace work does not end when the US troops leave Iraq or even when the civil war ends, but only when there is access to food, water, health and security for all groups of people. It comes only with environmental cleanup of depleted uranium and other toxic remnants of war and marsh restoration.

Peace work does not stop in Palestine when the Israeli troops leave or even when the barrier wall there comes down but only when the olive groves and natural systems are restored. Complete peace work requires justice and ecojustice and long-term solidarity efforts.

Following the wisdom of Native Americans, complete peace work requires a focus on cultural and spiritual values and on developing relationship.

We have seen significant structural change come from equatorial areas and lands south.

Out of Africa:

Wangari Maathai is the Kenyan woman whose movement is responsible for planting over 30 million trees, empowering many women and starting a grassroots democratic movement. In 2004 she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. In her book The Green Belt Movement, she describes a focus on culture and spirituality, relearning indigenous techniques, organic gardening and farming and multicropping and food security as a component of environmental restoration. She has recently started an international campaign to plant one billion trees around the planet. See www.greenbeltmovement.org

Wangari Maathai discusses a focus on culture and spirituality that was key for keeping 6,000 different women’s groups involved in their bottom-up movement:

“This component addressed the significance of cultural and spiritual values since they linked people with their roots, God and environment. This was necessary because the cultural values and systems of indigenous Kenyans were eroded, trivialized, and deliberately destroyed in the process of colonization….”

“The restoration of positive spiritual and cultural values is important since these contribute toward restoration of individual self-confidence, empowerment and identity. This restoration is also important in the protection of indigenous biological diversity, knowledge, practices and wisdom…” (The Green Belt Movement, Wangari Maathai, 2004, Lantern Books, New York, page 48)

Central America:

In El Salvador’s Local Zone of Peace, Jose “Chencho” Alas developed bottom-up, peasant-led efforts for environmental restoration and sustainable development.

Chencho has worked on bottom-up sustainable development efforts in El Salvador for more than 30 years. In 1998, eighty-seven villages where he worked in rural El Salvador linked together and formed a Local Zone of Peace to help the communities heal from all aspects of the bitter 12-year civil war. They provided access to technical expertise for peasant farmers and communities for organic agriculture, drip irrigation, reforestation, conflict resolution trainings, youth gang mediation, an art school project, a radio station, and access to markets.

One project restored mangrove ecosystems on the vulnerable coastline. This is a very important component of tropical ecosystem for healthy fish and shellfish populations, as well as storm protection. Chencho’s efforts encouraged people to focus on cultural and spiritual values and build from those values for long term efforts of peacemaking, economic and sexual justice, environmental restoration, and sustainable development.

He also is linking communities of ecojustice peacemakers from around Mesoamerica from cooperative, peasant organizations and indigenous networks. His Foundation for Self-Sufficiency in Central America (FSSCA) links up North Americans with efforts there through a one week delegation each July and through a program allowing people to donate financially to plant a mangrove or a fruit tree. See www.fssca.net and several pages for specific projects and activities.

Peacemakers in the northern hemisphere:

These bottom-up reforestation efforts in Africa and El Salvador are very important for all of us in the Northern Hemisphere. We can learn from these important components of peace work. The reforestation efforts that have the greatest opportunity to sequester carbon and also reduce global warming are those efforts in the tropics The realities of global warming and shrinking oil supplies will lead us to broaden our definition of peace work and involve new peoples with new talents in the healing of peoples, communities and the earth.